CHENNAI: When the touring Pakistan hockey team boarded the flight to Chennai for the Asian Champions Trophy, they had multiple problems. One, their main coach, Shahnaz Sheikh, had some visa problems so he couldn't travel. They got around that problem by elevating Muhammad Saqlain to that role with added backroom support of Rehan Butt. They had no workaround over the other issue. Their physio had also run into visa problems. So, they had to get creative. They opened some back channels and managed to secure a Chennai-based physio, Rajakamal S.
Rajakamal, who has worked with Shyam Sundar Jayapalan (Sun Risers Hyderabad), was given the opportunity to work with the Green Shirts for the duration of the tournament and he had no hesitation in answering the call of duty.
"I was informed about the job just one day before the first match (against Malaysia)," he told the media after their second encounter against South Korea on Friday. "They had come without a physio. I had worked with the state hockey team and worked with Nellai Kings in the Tamil Nadu Premier League. Because I was working as a sports physio currently, I got the option. It's very comfortable here, they are all making me feel at home."
When asked about the differences in being a physio in a sport like hockey as compared to cricket, he said: "Hockey is a short duration game, with higher intensity. Cricket doesn’t have such a high intensity. There are more possibilities of contusion injuries like fractures and dislocations. Cricket isn’t like that. There are also collision injuries possible here."
Chances are that their real work starts post game, like Rajakamal mentions. "Last night, after we finished, I finished my physio work around 12:30 in the night. I had a lot of treatments to do, those procedures are going for a while."
He also mentions that professionalism will be the name of his game when India faces Pakistan next Wednesday. "I don’t support anyone, I’m only thinking about players coming through the games without injuries."